Archive for the 'Science & Technology' Category

The Human Brain

If there has been something constant in my life, its been the desire to understand how things “work.” The brain is the center of our universal experience but is still not adequately understood. Because of the importance and mystery of the human brain I’ve always wanted to understand how it “works.” I’m not part of the camp that believes that the brain is divine in origin or radically different in some way and thus not amenable to methods of rational, scientific inquiry. No. The brain is an exquisitely complicated and subtle machine with trillions of components. Still, it can be understood and it is being understood. We know more about the brain now than 10 years ago and immeasurably more since a 100 years ago. Large swathes of the public still think of the brain in terms of the language of a bygone era: the Ego and the Id of Freud. Or maybe they’ve seen movies like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and think of mental institutions as frozen in time; still administering shocks and sedation. Its an unfortunate stereotype because other parts of the medical profession like cardiology have become über cool (with some help from medical dramas ). Terms like pacemakers, defibrillators, artificial hearts, bypass and triple-bypass have entered into common parlance. Neurology to a lot of people still means Lobotomies and Grand Mal seizures. Its partly the failure of the field to communicate its achievements and partly because medical progress in understanding the brain has been comparatively slow.  We have been hindered so far because the brain is the most complex organ in our body.

Nevertheless, Science continues to make amazing advancements in the understanding of the brain through disciplines like Neuro-Biology, Genetics, Chemistry, Artificial Intelligence and Psychiatry.  The state of the art has advanced quite far till now. Consider this: We can see what parts of the brain are involved in real-time thought when people are put into a functional MRI scanning machine. So if you are thinking visual thoughts, the visual part of the brain lights up on the screen. If you are having sexual thoughts then the sexual centers light up. This technique is constantly being refined and holds a lot of promise in treating diseases and understanding how the brain functions as a living system. All this is non-invasive live imaging. Sample another development: Scientists have come up with external robotic limbs that monkeys can learn to control through electrodes planted in their brain. And then there is a whole field of anti-depression research that has understood the functions of neurotransmitters in our brains. Today, there are specific medicines available that target one or two neurotransmitters in the brain instead of raising the level of all of them as older drugs did (e.g. SSRIs). For some people, SSRIs and other newer drugs have literally saved their lives.

The Female Brain

My fascination for brains in general and females in particular caused me to pickup The Female Brain by Dr. Louann Brizedine some weeks back. The book is an informative and fun read. There are lot of sweeping generalizations about the behavior of the sexes throughout the book which can make the book seem a little too simplistic, but putting in caveats and “your mileage might vary” statements everywhere would have made things equally tedious. This is not a book for “experts” but Dr. Louann has nevertheless tried to be scholarly with over 100 pages of notes and references tucked away at the end of the book for the benefit of boffins and reactionary critics.

My recommendation is that you read this book to get a good overview of the workings of the female hormonal system and its effects on neurotransmitters and emotional centers of the brain. Dr. Louann shows us how hormones play an important role in a woman’s mood, desire to mate and rear children and communicate with other humans. She explains how estrogen and testosterone influence the wiring of males and females at birth all the way through puberty and beyond. One does get the feeling  that Dr. Brizedine tends to blame hormones for everything (given that is her area of specialization) but there are places where she adequately defers to genetics, upbringing, diet and environmental conditions as a way of explaining female behavior. This is not only a book on hormones; there is a fair amount of evolutionary psychology i.e. why women behave the way they behave from an evolutionary standpoint. I’ve read a lot of Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley in the past and these arguments do have a certain appeal for me.

The book is peppered with stories and case studies of  crazy teenage girls and their crushes, infidelity, divorces, postpartum depression, sexual problems, love and marriage. Dr. Louann uses her deep insight into female psychology and medical expertise to treat these patients. Most of these stories have a happy denouement which may give some readers a false belief in the efficacy of the drugs and theories Dr. Louann is promoting. But its a minor quibble.

Dr. Louann Brizedine comes across as a kind woman who sincerely believes in the equality of sexes. The prose is friendly and non-feminist. She has a balanced viewpoint that both sexes have evolved slightly different brains because of the different roles they have played throughout history and that no brain is “superior.” Female brains are better at certain tasks and Male brains are better at certain tasks. Men and woman are partners, she seems to emphasize throughout the book.  As a man, I found the book very helpful in furthering my understanding of the women in my life. I came away touched, and infused with a greater appreciation of their innate abilities.

Sidharth’s Rating 4.0/5.0